


Where Nobody Will Find You

by electricteatime



Series: To Know the Parts of Me By Name [4]
Category: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Manipulation, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Gen, Hallucinations, Heavy Angst, Human Experimentation, Hurt No Comfort, It gets pretty dark, Just a whole load of no good-ness, Other, Project Blackwing (Dirk Gently), Project Icarus, Psychological Trauma, Removal of Choice, Sensory Deprivation, Series Insert - To Know Despair (Project Icarus), Trauma, Unhealthy Relationships, emotional dependency, not a standalone - read the rest first, please heed the warnings, series add on, threat of death, threat of violence, unreality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-27
Updated: 2018-04-27
Packaged: 2019-04-28 10:15:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14447124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/electricteatime/pseuds/electricteatime
Summary: The top slams shut with a loud bang, and he’s plunged into total darkness. The silence ringing in the space around him almost seeming loud.For a long moment he’s too frozen with fear to do anything but feel the way his breathing starts to get faster as his chest rises and falls in time with his racing heartbeat.***Blackwing carry out a lot of experiments, Project Icarus isn't good at passing their tests but sometimes, just sometimes, they manage to get one to work.***The first add on for my To Know the Parts of Me By Name series - Takes place during To Know Despair (Project Icarus).





	Where Nobody Will Find You

**Author's Note:**

> Hello there, it's me again! The main body of my series is over as you all know, thank you for being so lovely about it! As promised, there are a few more add-ons to come yet, and this is the first of them. While some of the add-ons are things I had planned from the start, this one was actually requested by a few people who wanted to know more about the kind of things Dirk went through in Blackwing as Project Icarus. I glossed over most of the details in Part Two because I wanted to keep it non-gratuitous, and I also wanted to keep a good balance of angst to hope throughout the series, but I can play around a little more with my add-ons because the happy ending is already in place and people don't need to read them for the series to make sense, they're just a little extra for those of you who want a bit more so I hope you enjoy it!
> 
> As usual, please heed the warnings for this fic. This is by far the worst of the series and I put everything I can think of into the warnings but please let me know if you think I'm missing something. The angst is strong here and I'd rather you didn't read if you think this is something that will upset you.
> 
> While I think in theory this could be read as a standalone, it will make much more sense if you read my series first. This part in particular takes place in Part 2: To Know Despair (Project Icarus) and if you've read that you'll understand why I refer to Dirk the way I do in this add-on, and just how angsty this piece is going to get.

They come for him while he’s sleeping.

It’s something they do fairly frequently, he knows they try to keep him as disoriented as possible to stop him from keeping himself too grounded in reality. He doesn’t know if it’s actually night time or not, but it’s a time they’d allowed him to sleep so he’d taken it either way. Occasionally he’ll get a rare glimpse of a clock and it will help him find his feet better, not even knowing _when_ he is makes it difficult to keep track of the passage of time. Although he’s pretty sure that’s the point. 

They don’t drag him out of bed this time though, merely blare the sirens loud enough to jolt him into wakefulness, it leaves him rubbing confusedly at his eyes when the guards step into his room. He’s taken to wearing his jumpsuits to sleep in, having learned early on that getting dressed under the watchful eye of a guard is special kind of unpleasant, particularly if they get impatient. They aren’t much more pleasant for not having to wait though and one of them grabs him by the shoulder and pushes him out of the door. 

For the most part the guards don’t talk to him, there are a handful who like to but the majority won’t say anything unless they’re telling him to do something. He wonders if it helps them feel better about what they’re doing, wonders if they even think of him as a person, he knows for a fact some of them keep the distinction between him and them very clear he just doesn’t know how far that distinction goes. A lot of the time he’s too busy trying to think of himself as something other to dwell on it. 

Even if they don’t talk, the guards are more than happy to shove him along when they don’t think he’s walking fast enough. Sometimes with hands but more usually with whatever they’ve got with them that day, this one in particular has a cattle prod taser that he knows from experience he’ll be more than happy to use if he gives him chance so he tries not to react every time he presses it between his shoulder blades to force him forwards. It gives him something else to think about rather than dwelling on the mounting fear as they make their way down to the basement. He’s been failing a lot of tests recently, even Riggins has been getting impatient with him, and he’s worried about what will come next even though there’s no point. He can worry all he likes, they’re going to do it anyway. The only option he has is to try and pull up his defenses now before they’ve already gotten past them. 

“Ah! Just in time!” the room is full of scientists, some he’s seen before but quite a few that he hasn’t. The one who speaks seems excited, scurrying over to look him over with a bright smile. It would put him at ease but he knows that look, he isn’t excited to see _him_ , he’s excited to see a test subject. He’s starting to learn that’s all he is to these people. 

“We designed this one _just_ for you, so I do hope it works out. If this goes well it could really be a turning point in your… development here. I think you might come to like this one, it’s far more refined than the other techniques if I do say so myself and we’re all hoping to see some interesting results,” he grins as he rubs his hands together, reaching out to put a gentle hand on his shoulder and guide him over to where Riggins is waiting for him. 

“Svlad,” he’s got his serious voice on, the one that’s reassuring but also tells him this is important, and Icarus curls the fingers of his hands around his sleeves to hold onto them for comfort as Riggins drops to one knee to make them more level. “I’m going to need you to be very brave for me today, can you do that?” 

Icarus finds himself shaking, glancing over to the big metal box in the middle of the room which he’s only just realised is probably meant for him. Riggins is asking him to be brave though, this is important, if he gets it right he might stop being so disappointed in him. He needs desperately to get back in his good books, there’s an aching in his chest every time he looks at him like he’s let him down. 

“Yes. Yes I can do that,” he nods, setting his jaw even though his eyes are starting to water. Riggins smiles and ruffles his hair like he hasn’t done in so long, and Icarus exhales with relief at the first positive contact he’s had in months. It only makes him more determined. 

“I knew you could. Now, this is probably going to be… unpleasant. But a lot of people have put a lot of effort into this and we really do think this could be something that helps us understand more about what’s happening in that head of yours. It might mean we’re able to unlock something in you, it might even help you to control it. So whatever happens I need you to remember that, okay? That this is helping. It will help us and it could help you, and I know you’re smart enough to understand how important that is.” Riggins always talks to him like he’s an adult like this even though he’s not. Like he’s smarter than other kids his age, like he’s more mature, like he understands more. Icarus has no idea how true that is, he hasn’t met anyone his age since he’s been here, but it always makes him feel more important. Like he’s being trusted with something. Like he has some control. Like he can _help_.

“I’ll do my best,” he promises, trying not to sound as desperate as he is to get this right. 

“You’ll do as you're told? And you won’t put up a fuss about it?” it doesn’t reassure him any that Riggins seems to think he needs to remind him to behave, like they’re doing something that might make him forget. 

“Yes, sir. I’ll be good,” he clutches at his sleeves even though Riggins seems satisfied with the answer. 

“Good. Now, we’re going to need to shave your head,” he says it like it’s nothing, like it’s meaningless, even though it sends a bolt of cold right through to his core. “Don’t worry, it’ll all grow back, but we need to monitor your brain activity and it’s either this or… well. It would have involved some rather permanent surgery, so I thought you might prefer this.”

He knows what he’s expected to say, what he wants him to say, but his throat feels tight and his hand drifts up to touch his hair on top of his head without thinking. His eyes fill with tears even though he doesn’t know why it matters, why of all the things they’ve done here this feels like it might be the worst, but it makes him feel small just to think of them taking this from him as well. Making decisions about his body in a way that makes him realise just how far out of his control this is. 

They could do anything to him. 

They _would_ do anything to him. 

Still, Riggins is watching him expectantly and he swallows around the way his throat feels like a desert, knowing realistically the medical procedure would be worse than this and he really should be grateful. He’s being selfish.

“Thank you, sir,” his voice comes out little more than a whisper but Riggins seems satisfied, nodding his head as he gestures him over to a woman who’s already waiting to shave it off. 

“Go on then.” 

His steps are small as he makes his way over, but he’s just prolonging the inevitable. The woman doesn’t smile when he looks up at her after he’s sat down, and he turns his gaze to his knees, fidgeting with his fingers in his lap as he tries his best to stay still. The buzzing sound makes him jump though and he doesn’t even get a warning before he feels the clippers being pulled across his head and his hair falls down around him, fluttering to the ground like confetti. It’s not pretty though, not in the same way, and he squeezes his eyes shut because he promised he’d be brave but it feels like someone has reached into his chest and squeezed all the breath out of his lungs. It feels like they’re re-making him into something far from himself, something that belongs to them. Like the last of his identity is being stripped away from him.

He already knew that they would act upon him as they saw fit no matter what he did, he just didn’t know that something this simple could hurt so much. By the time they’re done he’s trembling, rubbing the sleeve of his jumpsuit under his nose and trying to steady his breathing enough to make sure none of his tears actually fall. This is _important_ he tells himself. This could _help_. He just wishes he didn’t have to feel so helpless to be able to do that. 

When he stands up from the chair he keeps his eyes fixed on the floor in front of him, trying to centre himself around something. He feels vulnerable and stripped bare, self conscious with all these strangers watching him so indifferently. The realisation that nobody here has any interest in helping him isn’t a new one, but it strikes just as hard every time. The only comfort he’ll get will come from Riggins, and he only gets it if he’s doing well. He _has_ to do well. He can’t face letting him down again, not after this. 

“What now?” he asks, trying to sound like it hasn’t bothered him at all and he’s not scared of whatever comes next, but his voice wobbles and his vision goes blurry for a moment before he blinks it all away, steadying himself with his next breath. 

His answer comes in the form of another scientist strapping something down over his head. It’s cold and heavy and he sticks little pads against his skin where there are gaps in the metal, wires trailing out of them ready to be connected to something important. He fidgets with his fingers, stops when he realises they’re watching him and focuses on keeping himself quiet instead and trying not to panic. He still has no idea what’s going on. 

It takes a long time for the scientist to be happy with the positioning of things, and once he is he tightens the final strap and Icarus can feel it digging into his head. It feels like a brand.

“Now,” Riggins makes him jump, looking up when the man puts a hand on his shoulder and gives him a kind smile. “This is the really important part, so I need you to focus. We’re going to try something that might seem a little scary, but I promise it will be okay as long as you behave yourself. This could be it, Svlad. All these people are here to see if we can prove that you’re special,” he cups his jaw reassuringly and he finds himself leaning into it, the gentleness is rare. “I already know you’re special, but this time we’re going to have to show them, so try not to panic. I’m going to leave you with the scientists now, but I’ll be just over there. Promise me you’ll try your absolute best?”

It’s too much pressure all of a sudden, he wants to kick and scream and run away but he can’t remember the last time Riggins looked at him with anything other than disappointment and even if the expectation and hope scares him he’d do anything to keep it. 

“I promise, I’ll do everything I can.” 

“That’s my boy,” he hasn’t any hair left to ruffle, so Riggins taps a finger against his cheek before he leaves. Suddenly Icarus feels startlingly alone among the countless pairs of eyes that blink down at him. 

“Come here,” the doctor is beckoning him to the box, and after a moments hesitation he makes his way over, eyeing it up fearfully. “You need to take off your jumpsuit, everything else can stay.”

After everything the order just seems cruel. He’s trying so hard to keep his defenses up and in check but he’s not sure he’s going to be able to if they keep on stripping him down. Icarus just stares at him for a long moment, like he’s waiting for him to take it back, but when the doctor just raises an eyebrow he swallows down the last flicker of hope he has and starts working his shaking fingers against the buttons. 

The fabric pools to the ground around him and he tries his best to imagine that he’s anywhere else but where he is. 

“Good, you’re all set. Into the tank,” he gestures somewhat impatiently at the ladder attached to the box. 

There’s no time to waste worrying about it, there’s nothing to be done to stop them. Instead he just complies, climbing the ladder one rung at a time until he’s climbing down the other side and standing in a box that comes up far over his head. If he looks up he can see the ceiling, lights beaming down on him, but everything else is just the inside of what seems like a giant metal tube. He wraps his arms around himself while nobody can see him, it’s a small comfort. 

“There’s a socket to your left, plug the wires into it,” the disembodied voice of the doctor floats over to him and he scrambles to do as he’s told, the sooner he complies the sooner this will be over. The panel lights up briefly when he connects the wires, going dark after a moment. 

“Good. Open the panel next to it and put the mask on,” it takes him a moment to pry the panel open and when he does he frowns at the object inside. It’s a breathing mask, like the ones they put on him when they operate. The sight of it fills him with dread because if it’s there he needs it, and for a moment he just holds it in his hand and tries to imagine what it must mean. “Is there a problem?” the doctor jolts him out of his thoughts and he shakes his head, forgetting they can’t see. 

“No, no. Sorry.” He doesn’t want to upset anyone, especially not now, and he swallows down the fear as he puts the mask in place. The constant flow of dry air does nothing to help regulate his breathing. 

“It is about to get very dark, be reassured that you are in a controlled environment and anything that happens can be stopped at any moment so please try to remain calm. Test one will now commence.”

He doesn’t get chance to ask what that means before the sound of an alarm blaring jolts him into covering his ears, an unholy screech sounding above him and when he looks up the lid of the box is rising up and swallowing away the light like he’s watching an eclipse.

The top slams shut with a loud bang, and he’s plunged into total darkness. The silence ringing in the space around him almost seeming loud.

For a long moment he’s too frozen with fear to do anything but feel the way his breathing starts to get faster as his chest rises and falls in time with his racing heartbeat. 

Then the water starts coming in. 

He hears it before he feels it, but it’s pooling at his feet before long and coming in fast enough to be climbing up his body at an alarming rate. The need for the breathing mask becomes suddenly apparent, and the panic hits him all at once. 

He reaches for the sides of the tube, it’s bigger than he remembers and hard to do in the dark but he finds it before long, fingers scrambling against the edges for something, some kind of give but it’s all just smooth. He claws at the metal, shouting for them to let him out but the sound is muffled even to him in a box that’s designed to be as quiet as possible. The water is up to his waist now, climbing up his chest and he forgoes trying to find his own way out and just starts banging his fist on the metal like it will make any difference. Like anyone will help him. Like any of them would even care if he died in here like this. 

He manages to tilt his head back, treading water as long as he can to try and keep his head above water but it’s rising too quickly and he’s too tired to be any match. It’s no longer than a few minutes before he goes under. 

He can breathe at least, but that’s about all he can do. There’s a strange sensation of not knowing whether his eyes are open or closed in the totality of the darkness around him. He can’t feel the walls or the floor, and he feels for the most part like he’s floating in a weighted, inky blackness that’s pressing down on him and pulling him out in every direction possible.

He feels like he’s stopped being real. 

It’s like all the panic has been sucked out of him, breath becoming shallow but steady as he lets himself slip into the feeling of not being anything at all. The only constant thing, like always, is that little thread wound into a knot inside of him, tethering him to… _something_. Not reality, not the physical world at least. Not the place with the scientist and the testing and the pain. Something else, something bigger, something more important than all of that. Something more important than anything. 

It’s in him. It _is_ him. Every part of him is woven inexplicably into _this_ , and with nothing else to focus on it’s easy, it’s so easy to let himself follow it along to wherever it’s going. 

He could get lost like this and it wouldn’t matter. 

Until he reaches out and tugs on the string, and his mind reacts like he just stuck a fork in a toaster. Lighting up so suddenly it threatens to shock him. 

It’s not nothing, it’s _everything_. It’s creation and destruction, the beginning and the end, light and darkness. A space between one and zero, infinite in all directions and heavy, so heavy. It pulls him in every direction and he can feel himself starting to unravel. Like he’s staring at everything that has ever and will ever exist and he wants to pour himself into all of it. Every millisecond of existence spread out in blinding white and blue above him and he sees it all, understands it all. It’s a jigsaw without a reference picture but he _knows_ how to make the pieces fit, knows how to make it all work, how to put it all together again. There’s a whispering in his ear, and he reaches out, trance like, head spinning with calculations, with questions and answers and possibilities and taking in more and more and _more_ like it’s never going to stop filling him up and unravelling him to stitch itself back together. 

The entirety of time and space being poured into his head, every possible choice and outcome there will ever be, every single thing that has the potential to ever happen making his eyes wide and his mind race and it hurts, it _hurts_ so much but he just can’t stop looking. He can’t even blink. He’s paralysed and helpless and _terrified_. 

Fear like nothing he’s ever felt in his life before now because he can feel it. The _thing_. The wrongness. There’s something in here with him and it’s going to get him, if not now then eventually and he can’t move, can’t breathe, there’s nothing to help him and he can feel breath on the back of his neck which shouldn’t be here in a place where reality doesn’t exist. He can feel it, gaping and empty and _hungry_ like it will devour everything in its path and still not be satisfied. He can feel the way it reaches for him first, feels the way it picks at his edges like it can unravel him, feels the way it forces his mouth open like it’s going to climb down his throat and suffocate him with every broken thing he can see laid out before him, even the smallest of mistakes piling up to make a mountain the size of which he can’t comprehend with his brain so small and so human. So _limited_. 

It wants to open him up. 

It wants him to _see_.

It wants to bend him to it’s will, to use him, to break him apart and consume him entirely. 

He doesn’t realise he’s screaming, one long drawn out note that sounds nothing like a sound any human has made as he’s dragged out of the water and into the light. He convulses on the floor when they set him down, staring unseeingly up at the ceiling as he finds enough breath to start sobbing, tugging at the straps around his head to get whatever the hell they’d put on him off, throwing it away as he curls himself into a ball when hands grab at him and try to restrain him. 

“ _No, no, no, no no no no_ ,” he repeats it over and over, hugging his knees to his chest and he doesn’t even know what he’s trying to stop all he knows is he doesn’t want it. Doesn’t want more. Doesn’t want _that_. They stop trying to touch him after a moment, and it takes a long time before he’s able to look up from where he’s huddled into himself on the floor. 

It feels like it takes forever for him to catch enough breath to start sobbing.

“Shh,” his voice is soft, soothing almost. He reaches for it blindly. “It's okay. You did well Svlad, I’m proud of you.” Riggins is stroking a hand along his head when he finally lifts it, it doesn’t feel the same now though, it’s not as soft, but the touch is gentle and he leans into it like a pet looking for attention. The touch helps to soothe him, the man is smiling at him and it makes him relax. He’s done well. He’s done _well_. 

Icarus doesn’t make the connection right away. 

“The results were positive,” there’s pride in his voice, but something is wrong and the dread that had been quelled by his gentleness is starting to creep back in. “Your brain activity was like nothing we’ve ever seen before, clearly we managed to trigger something in you. It _worked_.” He sounds reverent, the kind of tone he hasn’t heard in his voice in a long time. Then he turns his smile on him, one filled with that certain kind of wonder he’d given the first time he’d done something unexplainable, and it occurs to him all at once what that means. 

He shakes his head, fisting his hands into Riggins shirt as he cries, loud and ugly in a way that echoes in the space around them and it’s testament to how pleased the man is that he lets him, just keeps smoothing his hand across his shoulders where he’s shivering from the cold. 

“We have to tweak a few things, but this is _good_ Svlad. With any luck you’ll do even better next time,” he shushes him but doesn’t snap at him, and Icarus just keeps crying while he lets him because he can’t go back there, he _can’t_. Not knowing what’s waiting for him, not knowing what it wants to do. 

“I’m so proud of you,” the words are usually his greatest source of comfort, but now it just makes him shake more, huddling in closer to the man as he tries to find some good in all of this. “So proud.”

It’s the first time it’s felt like a knife in his gut.

It’s the first time he finds himself wishing he’d failed. 

They’d _finally_ made some kind of connection, but all he can do is cry.

**Author's Note:**

> So! Let me know what you think! I like getting words in return for these words but screaming will also suffice. I hope you like it, I'd ask you to be nice, but I already know you're a lovely lot!
> 
> You can catch me at kieren-fucking-walker on tumblr if you want to yell at me/talk to me about Dirk Gently/talk over horrible angst and delight in the pain. I'm also more than happy to talk over my ideas surrounding this project if that's something that interests you. I'm also happy to point you in the direction of people and resources that can help if you're struggling with any of the problems brought up in this fic. 
> 
> Take care lovelies <3


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